It turns out that the bi-color synthetic brush I used has a removable head (threaded base, with the handle tapped), and with it I got a very nice badger brush. This is a Yaqi brush and I’ll note that the Yaqi shaving brushes I received are excellent and modestly priced. Yaqi currently has only three with a 22mm knot, but the 24mm knots (as in this brush) are not bad at all. And the pictured brush, with two interchangeable heads (base of knot is threaded and screws into the tapped handle), is very nice—and I particularly like the bi-color synthetic knot: very soft and comfortable. Manuel tells me:
Yaqi has a very good synthetic fiber production, in my opinion the best or the best currently. It has magnificent high mountain Manchurian badger. Plisson synthetic brush is known, then very imitated as Plissoft by several vendors (Fine AA among others) .. but it is Yaqi who made that model for Plisson .. the story is long and twisted. Most brands and vendors, and stores that sell their own models, are OEM jobs that Yaqi does for them.
He provides the name of that bi-color brush:
Some developments, such as the 4-quadrant brush (the Target Shot) are my ideas … corresponds to a military theme [the camouflage handle, I presume, which matches the Saturday razor I used – LG], what they saw in the periscope in German submarines of World War II, when they aimed their torpedoes against the ships to sink, of the allies, that black and white target divided into quadrants, it was a system of aiming at night against surface ships, hence its name: Target Shot.
Given the high quality and modest price of Yaqi razors and shaving brushes, the site is worth bookmarking.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had a new badger brush, but I did remember that, like boar brushes, a break-in period is required: a new boar brush simply destroys the lather you’ve made. You work up a nice lather, lather your stubble, put the brush down, shave the first pass, pick up the brush, and there’s no trace of lather at all. It’s as though the natural bristles have a lathercidal coating.
If you continue to use the brush this wears/washes off, and within a week the lather endures. And the same is true of badger brushes, to a lesser degree: whatever the lathercide is, it is more easily washed away. Remember this, I first used the brush to work up a sort of lather from my bar of MR GLO after washing my stubble with it at the sink. I loaded the brush, worked the lather up in my palm, then rinsed the brush clean, shook it, and loaded it with the fragrant Lenthéric, one of my favorite shaving soaps.
The fragrance really is quite present in this soap, and I enjoyed the lathering immensely. The knot has a wonderful feel: dense but soft, and I happily worked up a good lather, adding just a little water since I had loaded the brush heavily. The the first past with the Parker slant. (Parker calls it a “Semi-Slant” so as not to frighten potential purchasers, but it’s an extremely comfortable razor—and highly efficient as well: my face as I write this is remarkably smooth, much smoother than usual.)
I pick up the brush to lather for the second pass… and the lather’s all gone! Totally vanished. I guess one washing wasn’t enough. I wet the knot, give it a shake, and reload the brush. Again I work up a wonderful lather, and I shave the second pass.
I pick up the brush and find it still full of lather, so perhaps the second washing did it. Badger brushes move past the lathercidal phase quickly and easily, after all. The third pass went well, then a rinse and a good splash of Guerlain’s Vol de Nuit as an aftershave, and the new week begins.